The service providers have also alleged that their complaints about the DDoS attacks have gone ignored.

Internet service providers (ISPs), mainly from Mumbai and Pune, claimed they are being targeted in a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack for the second time in the last three months, and said they will raise the issue of cyber terrorism with IGP (Cyber) Brijesh Singh. They also claimed that their complaint was not taken seriously by the Pune Police.

“We have been facing DDoS attacks since September 15 and have been running from pillar to post to lodge a complaint, but no officer from the Pune Police has taken a serious stand on our complaint. We are now going to lodge our complaint with IGP (Cyber) Brijesh Singh,” Kishore Desarda, director, Gazon Communication, said.

A DDoS attack typically bombards websites with requests, overloading the portal until its server crashes, thus denying access to legitimate users. “Such attacks, which reduce (Internet) speed to almost zero, have posed a serious threat to businesses of all ISPs, not only in Mumbai and Pune but across Maharashtra, and they need to be curbed immediately,” Mr. Desarda said. In July, ISPs had filed an FIR with the IG’s office about DDoS attacks. The case is being investigated by the Mumbai Police’s cyber cell.

Another leading ISP said, “DDoS attackers are back in business and it has hit services adversely in cities like Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai and Pune. This unprecedented attack on ISPs is akin to cyber terrorism and has assumed extreme significance against the backdrop of the hacking of more than 35 Central and State government websites in the last few days.”

In July, ISP representatives had met IGP Singh and had apprised him of the gravity of this sort of ‘cyber terrorism’. Following their request, the cyber cell had registered an FIR and launched a probe.

“Some unknown people are involved in crashing the networks of ISPs by making lakhs of requests at a particular terminal at a particular time at an unprecedented level, thus slowing down the whole internet experience, which we call DDOS. The Cyber Crime department is taking all possible measures to nab the perpetrators,” Mr. Singh had said earlier